The Gruen Transfer is a blog where I examine the world of marketing, how to affect it, how it affects the world, and how I one day plan to take it over (The world, not marketing.) If you have anything particular you'd like talked about gimme a buzz.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

╠ Whose Mcfault is it? ╣

McDonald's has been slammed by a parents council about their advertising efforts this year. One of the points as highlighted by the Gen Y marketing blog is that they were slammed for sponsoring athletics.

The question I have is where does the fault for this product really lie if this is perceived as a negative outcome. Is McDonald's really to blame for attempting to increase their brand perception by supporting a non negative activity? Is not the role of a business to make profits? Is it the athletics organization fault for accepting money from what may be perceived an unethical source.

Does the problem fall to the parents? Should they be making sure their kids only get their athletics in environments away from advertising aimed at them? Is it the kids fault for being sponges?

Personally I think it does fall to the parents. Markets work via demand. If parents conciously took the effort to demand more appropriate advertising it would work up the chain. A complete boycott would lead to the creation of new athletic alternatives where the parents will pay instead.

The point of the matter is that you need to pay for athletics and McDonald's is subsidizing that for the parents. If they don't want that, they have to cough up the equivalent amount. This sponsorship exists because the market supports it. Parents are currently happy to have their children advertised to rather than pay for it.

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About Me

Michael Lanyon is currently a 3rd year Marketing and Management student at the University of Melbourne. His main interest is in branding and is currently volunteering as brand Manager and Promotional leader for Melbourne Anime Festival Inc.